Top 8 Ways to Ruin Your Organic Garden

Well I’m ‘gardening’ this year and sowed a ton of seeds. I’ve had AMAZING success… in fact too much success due to 100% of the seeds sprouting! I now have 15 tomato plants! I really needed to plant only ONE seed per jiffy pot, not 3. Plus, they are all very healthy seedlings.

So… all of the issues I’m having have nothing to do with the seeds, but other issues. I thought maybe others could learn from my unfortunate organic gardening experiences, so here goes:

Here are the Top Eight ways to ruin your organic garden

8. Don’t put out slug bait

They loved my squash plants. They were not picky: pumpkin, zucchini, golden squash, they loved them all! Thank goodness I saved about half of my plants… I highly recommend the organic slug bait that is safe for pets and wildlife.

7. Live in an area with torrential rain in May

In NW Oregon where I live, we have had so much rain, it’s unbelievable. Today we had a HUGE downpour that about drowned my hardened off seedlings that I had set outside. It seems that we’ve only had a couple days in May that we haven’t had rain. The lack of sun is truly impeding my gardening progress!

6. Feed the Deer fresh grown Snacks

Unprotected or unfenced gardens in certain areas are just an engraved invitation to wildlife. I’m not sure what size fence it will take in my area to keep away the deer, but I’m starting to scout out supplies for next year now…

5. Don’t prepare your soil

Throwing plants into soil that hasn’t been prepared is like planning to fail. I admit, in a few areas I could have prepared the beds a little better. Digging in some compost or rotted manure does wonders for a poor soil.

4. Allow cute chipmunks to plant seeds in your container garden

A couple months ago I was like “oh how cute look at the chipmunks pick up the birdseed and then run down the deck.” I also secretly thanked them for exercising my 3 dachshunds. But now? Not so much. Their ‘seed’ is sprouting in all of my container plants, plus they’re doing a bit of digging. I bought a humane trap to see if we could catch some but haven’t had luck yet. They have a lot of time on their hands to plan this out, and my husband and I both have jobs.

3. Live in the forest

Without sun, not many plants can grow, and most vegetables require full sun. This can be a real difficulty depending on where you live. In Oregon we always have to consider where the sun will be (when it comes out). This gets tricky as the places with sun change depending on the time of year and the positioning of the trees. I am definitely taking a lot of detailed notes on where things are doing well. There’s no way that I’ll remember all of this next year.

2. Plant your garden on a hill

It’s definitely possible to garden on a hill, but it’s more difficult, since water rolls downhill. Since there’s not a flat space of land more than one foot square on my whole property, I’m considering doing a bit of tiering for next year (combined with the deer fence… see #6).

And now… the #1 way to ruin your garden…

1. Don’t start a garden at all!!

Ok so I’ve had a few problems this year with wildlife and weather, so what? At least I started! And I’m sure there will be something to harvest for salads, ferments or other dishes (pesto hopefully!). So if you don’t start, you can’t fail. But if you don’t start you’ll never learn, and you’ll never know! I’m still having fun and my husband and I are uniting together to come up with ways to succeed. I’m sure the fruits of our labor will be very sweet come September!

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So far as chipmunks, I’ve always had great success in trapping them with live catch traps using peanut butter bread. They love the stuff. Just leave a small trail of food from outside the trap and running into the trap and over the trap spring or pan. They may collect and run away with their cheeks full of the outside bait at first, but trust me they will then be back and on a mission.

I had to laugh when I saw the deer! They are my nemesis! 2 years ago they almost decimated my tomato crop. Because I have lots of little kids, I’m not able to put up an electric fence. Fortunately, we have privet hedge on one side of the garden which we keep about 4 feet high. On the other side, I use heavy duty deer netting and 8 foot poles that I found at Home Depot. The poles go in every few feet, and the netting is tied to the top of the pole with a twist tie. It’s a bit fragile, but it works. Along the bottom, I run 2 feet high decorative metal fencing which keeps the toddlers and deer from pushing into the garden. I have a picture of it on my site, but honestly, the fencing doesn’t photograph well. Who cares! It works!

Just an fyi, a .22 works a lot better than a humane trap. And don’t worry, there are plenty of chipmunks. You could probably even eat them if you were so inclined. Though my problem is ground squirrels – holes all over the yard! Also, I have seen chipmunks steal tomatoes right off the plants in containers on my deck! The ones I was allowing to ripen “just one more day”. Then I found the partially nibbled tomato discarded in the grass! Brats. The least they could have done was eat the whole thing.

Thank you for the laugh! although I admittedly do not have many of the problems you do because I live in the southeast. So I would add that one way to ruin a garden is to not water it when the temps are 90 degrees plus and there is no rain in sight!

I would say that the most important thing for an organic garden is definitely preparing the soil and enriching it. Then invest in several dogs to roam your property and scare off the big and little critters

Re: #6
I lived in the Seattle area and, though I got it to keep *in* my dogs and cats and later my sheep and chickens, this worked great at keeping out deer, coyotes, and stray cats (rabbits can chew through it unless you get the rabbit guard for the bottom):http://www.bennersgardens.com/

Beer is a great trap for slugs. A trick my family uses is burying old jars up to the neck and pouring some beer in the jar. Prop the lid up with a twig or rock (so you don’t dilute it when watering). The slugs will be attracted to the beer, away from your plants. Of course the slugs will meet their maker, but at least they go happy.